So...whats for dinner?

Sandy - personally when I lived in the boonies - I always made egg foo young with canned sprouts & canned water chestnuts. I started eating Chinese food when I was 5, and markets in the 1950s didn't have much fresh variety. 'Boonie' Chinese restaurants, even the less expensive variety, always had sprouts, but maybe they were canned too.

Interesting that I live a lot closer to the Mexican border than you do and most of our Asian restaurants have Asian chefs & line cooks - Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese, Thai, etc. I don't know of one sushi chef that isn't Asian - and usually also Japanese. Now if you're talking about general restaurants, yes probably most of the chefs & cooks are Latino.

Minus, I'm glad you enjoyed your cod dish. I have also found that there is more than one way to cook the fish before adding it to the sauce mixture. Only thing I don't do is totally cook it in the sauce since I like to make sure my fish is well cooked through. No sushi for this gal!

Tonight I made DH a nicer meal than I had in mind. He had scheduled us to attend a program at the Symphony. They ran the Mozart movie, Amadeus, with the live orchestra playing the musical score for it. Unfortunately, DH neglected to check the calendar for the Celtics' schedule before buying the tickets. He told me Friday as we were on our way to Boston to see a game, that he was regretting that the game and the performance were both at the same time. Hmmmm

Well, the game Friday was one of agony and ecstasy, as the last experienced player on the team (and newest star) sustained a facial fracture and headed to the hospital. But the young guys eventually pulled it off and won their 11th straight game. Today, I really wanted to see the game against Toronto in real time (we have on occasion paid attention to the rest of life and watched a game DVRd, but it is a challenge since it's almost impossible in this city to avoid hearing the game outcome without cutting oneself off from every form of media, neighbors, etc.), so while I kept my feelings to myself, DH said, if I really didn't want to attend the Symphony, he was fine with that. I took him up on it! He went, and even ran into a guy who needed a ticket so it was a win-win. I decided to make a nice meal that I knew he would enjoy when returning home famished. He would have not eaten for five hours which by his standards is a VERY long time.

So, needing the exercise, I took a long walk to the grocery store, and picked up things he loves to eat....and happened across a new “spirits" store on the way, so stopped in and bought him a nice locally made craft beer.

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This was dinner....shrimp and scallop scampi over wild rice (just could not do more pasta!), a Boston lettuce salad with pear, mushrooms, and red onion. Before dinner I had a cheese and cracker tray ready for DH to enjoy with his beer. Had a crusty boule for some bread...his fave. So, any guilt I experienced bagging out to stay home and watch the Cs was erased with a tasty meal we shared. And the Cs eeked out another win! Yay! Of course later this week they face Golden State, so the lengthy win streak party will be over!

Cherry, my DDIL’s family always cooks Persian food, and that stew sounds very familiar....however since both my DS1 and DDIL1 became vegan, they never have the tasty beef stews I used to enjoy. Her parents have managed to adapt their Persian cooking to their vegan needs. Quite a departure from what they used to eat. Eggplant is featured a lot...and lentil stews. Your BCP looks totally delicious! I guess getting that cake texture right is the main issue for this dessert. I will not be trying to make it....can buy the tiny one that is perfect in taste, texture, and size from our local store bakery. Otherwise, I’d eat way too much over the week it lived in our house.

Lacey, Minus, here comes the pictures of gourmeh sabzi, I thought I will show you what I am tryin to sell so hard. Lacey, I am absolutely sure you had it plenty of times, eggplants and lentils stew aka gheymeh bademdjan is my favorite, I do not cook it myself although I know how and therefore I always end up ordering that at any Persian restaurant we ever eat.

The dinner tonight will be beef stroganov since I have lots of sour cream in my fridge.

Eric - I agree. Chinese immigrants opened a very fancy restaurant in my home town in in the 1950s. It's still there but now run by the grandchildren, and there are some variations to my memories.

Interesting thought in light of seasonal dressing/stuffing prep - which ever you call it. Everyone I talk to makes it pretty much like their mother did. I'm in the South, so most of my friends make corn bread dressing. But I wasn't raised here so I don't use cornbread. I do use sage, and no giblets please.

He's much better. If he gets home and can have solid food, I will pan-sear the duck breast I've been defrosting. If he's in one more night, I will have leftover takeout Cantonese (tom choi--sort of a cross between baby bok choi and collards--and shrimp & chicken w/ black bean sauce). If he has to be on a liquid diet, there's some lobster bisque waiting for him,

He still has the NG tube--they won't pull it until X-rays are done and (one hopes) show the obstruction is gone. He insists on going to work tomorrow, even if he has to check himself out a.m.a. If he still has morphine in his system he won't be able to drive, so I'll have to get him to his first "block" (Union Health, accessible by train) and it'll be up to him to get around the rest of the day & evening. He has a Ventra card for trains & buses and can use a credit card for taxis. (He never downloaded Uber, Lyft or any taxi-hailing apps, so he'll have to figure that out. He has three degrees, so I think he's up to the task).

carolehalstone, I do not use much oil for this dish, a couple of spoons to sautee the onions before I add the meat and when I sautee the leaks, parsley and dill I probably add a couple of spoons. The meat for this dish is quite fat though, it has to be veal with bone marrow, cut like for Osso Bucco, but I have also cooked it with prime rib and it was good too. Sometimes in restaurants I can see at once if they fried it in a lot of oil, but it does not have to be so. One just sautees the greens so they turn into this cooked parsley color then just add it to the stew. If done well it has very distinct flavor and it tastes like something you never had before, like blue cheese for example. Until now every time I cook it I close my eyes and feel like I am 20 again having it for the first time at my former MIL home. I licked that plat clean. At that age I could only cook eggs, so Persian dishes were probably my first culinary experiments.

I saw this recipe that Laurie posted too, I started to read this thread from the beginning, there was another recipe of Togherthanithought with Italian sausages, beans ans spinage, I tried it, was good and easy, a quick fix.Cherry

Thanks, Ilona. His small intestine isn’t kinked any more and he’s feeling much better; but his surgeon thinks his colon (below where the blockage was) is still too distended. So the NG tube is still in. Will find out tomorrow if he's gonna need another resection.

Dinner today was bef stroganov, thank you Eric, that I prepared of a nice bit organic prime rib with oven baked rosemary potatoes, no leftovers of the latter, my husband ate all up. To it we had green sallad and beet root sallad, the latter we eat almost all the time.

Oh hey Eric. I bet you could make a ton of money doing this as a retirement job. Even if you only want to spend one morning a week working. Please put me in line behind Joyce.

Joyce - what do you think about paying his airfare? That does change the equation some. Still might be worth it. Eric - will you throw in a home cooked meal after you clean out the fridge & pantry?

Lacey, get your cataracts done! (At least a month apart. of course). I could not believe how much more clearly I could see afterward.

I'm anxiously waiting for my cataracts to get bad enough for surgery lol. I think they are but my doc says not yet. Right now I'm having problems with excessive tearing, but can't get in until January! I'll be insane by then.

Today i"m doing a test run on a gingerbread recipe that I plan to take to my DSIL's house for thanksgiving. Dinner will be a pot roast in the pressure cooker.

Love the pic Eric! May I borrow the suit for my next fridge clean out?

Only you know if your cataracts are so ripe that you can't stand them any more. About a year or two before, when I asked my ophthalmoligist whether to have the surgery, he replied "you tell me" (the same answer my orthopedist gave when I asked about knee replacement). Push came to shove when, after buying increasingly stronger reading glasses because I thought the reading correction in my progressives was too weak, I went to LensCrafters and the optometrist told me my reading correction was the same as in my then-current progressives, but that my own lenses were getting too clouded to read clearly no matter how well my muscles were focusing them; and (more chillingly) that I should see my ophthalmologist because the lenses were too cloudy for her to see my retinas with the equipment that optometrists in eyeglass shops have.

You can choose, when you have your surgery, to get lenses that correct for either distance or reading, but not both (unless you are willing to go out of pocket for lenses that correct for both--but they're much costlier and their concentric circles can cause haloes & glare, which are among the symptoms for which you're getting the surgery in the first place). Some get lens implants that correct one eye for distance & the other for reading, and get refracted for glasses that do just the opposite.

I chose distance correction, because despite getting a new lens that corrects for reading, cataract surgery cannot reverse or halt "presbyopia:" eye muscles stiffen as they age and don't focus as well as in our youth. Many people ditch their glasses for distance and carry around readers, but I found that a little bit of distance correction in my progressive lenses helps me drive better at night, especially on unlit country roads. And I need only one pair for both purposes--I have decided that concealer doesn't cover my undereye circles as well as do cute eyeglass frames.

And with online outlets like Zenni.com (single-vision, whether clear or sunglasses, starts at $7) I can get glasses insanely cheaply (even progressives are only a $30 upcharge, with Transitions a $150 add-on), in a wardrobe of different colors. Even Warby Parker (which has brick-and-mortar stores as well as a website), with its $95 single-vision price, costs half as much as LensCrafters or my doctor's in-house optical shop--despite a $195 add-on for progressives and $100 for Transitions. Zenni fills my prescriptions more accurately than does LensCrafters. The downside of ordering online or at Warby Parker is that you have to wait 10-14 days before your glasses arrive--but they're mailed to you. If you use VisionWorks, America's Best, or your doctor's optical dept., the wait is just as long and you have to go pick them up.

I get all of my glasses on line: Zenni, Goggles 4u, 39 dollar glasses, etc. I've had far better luck with them than brick and mortar stores. I can then change them every year or so with no guilt. Much better selection too. I know some people have problems though.

My main vision problem is transitioning from light to dark, which may or may not be due to the cataracts. it's most annoying.

The gingerbread is making the house smell amazing!

Comfort food tonight at the Fireside: we shared crab cakes as an app; then I had country fried steak (the closest thing I can find to real wienerschnitzel--how I miss Wolfgang Puck Cafe's version with home fries!), sweet potato tater tots, steamed cauliflower & haricots verts. Bob had gouda mac & cheese with tomatoes and andouille. Yup, took home lots of leftovers.